On the streets of Pakistan you hardly ever see a female walking alone, or driving alone. In smaller cities that is, Lahore, Islamabad etc things are a bit different - anyway.
During my recent trip to Pak, I’ve come across some females who’ve impressed me a lot - Like many others, I too have a stereotype about Pak females, ke ji, they’re house-wives even before getting married, they spend their days with starplus and movies etc etc. But this time I’ve seen a different group of young females as well, docs and lawyers are not that interesting. This first female is teacher by profession, though initially I thought she’s lady tailor. She makes 800 rupees/month by teaching in a private school, stitches around 5 dresses a day, 90 rupees per dress. She studies part time and has five younger sisters and a younger brother who needs medical aid and her parents, whom she’s supporting.
This other female is also lady tailor, a very pretty and decent young girl. She too have many younger siblings, I didn’t get exact number but they were 6+, the youngest one wasn’t more than 3 years old. She stitches day and night in busy months. I think her working hours are 08-04am. She sits on the floor without any support so when we saw her she was complaining about severe back pain. she’s making more money than the other female as she can copy designs from any fashion mag.
The old lady (maasi), working for us - ammi hired her for cooking etc. She has eight children and even her grandkids are about to get married, if only they could afford the dowry. She can hardly do anything, but she has to work else she can’t pay her bills or medical expenses. She’s very proud lady imo, refuses to even eat anything without telling us. I cooked myself for two weeks and she was extremely stressed as she thought we’d kick her out, so she’d try her level best to be quick in the kitchen. Then I decided to walk out and leave her alone. None of her eight brats help her with a single rupee, no one even cares for her health but hell if she ever bad mouths them. I deeply respect her for that.
This young female who also works for us with her mom - they’re our khaandani servants, according to her mom anyway. While her mother blows our brains out every morning, while naazi quietly cleans the entire place while we’re a sleep. She’s one funny character, so full of life. she always has the latest gossips and stories about every pardah nasheeN of our village :o But the most interesting story is her own love affair. Last time we met her she was just a kid - she still looks the same, she’s just a little faster than before. She works to pass time and because they don’t want anyone else working for us.
A lady I’ve only seen twice is teacher by profession and is also in some org that informs ppl about various kinds of diseases, such and malaria etc. This demands that she visits all kind of ppl etc. No one has anything on her but because of her job she hasn’t earned much respect, which is confusing for me at least. This female is divorced and has raised a son on her own. I’ve also come across some shareef ‘prostitutes’, they can make up to 1000 rupees per person, they enjoy everyone’s respect, sort of. More about this topic, when I have more time.
